


Dystopian Novels, Grilled Cheese Sandwiches, and the Art of High School Crushes

by fennecfawkes



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Excessive Banter, HS Senior Clint, M/M, Not-So-Secret Crush, Pining, Sadness Sandwiches, Student Teacher Phil, Unrepentant Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-30
Updated: 2014-09-30
Packaged: 2018-02-19 08:10:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2381072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fennecfawkes/pseuds/fennecfawkes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Clint is so all about cardigans and quiet handsomeness, and Phil is not immune to the charms of an avid reader on his third recurve named Veronica.</p><p>Not my characters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dystopian Novels, Grilled Cheese Sandwiches, and the Art of High School Crushes

**Author's Note:**

> A note on the age gap: I typically write Phil and Clint with an age difference similar to canon (about nine years). But that would've necessitated a 13-year-old Clint getting a crush on a 22-year-old Phil, and I don't write underage fic. So I very much compressed the gap.

Clint yelps as the back of Natasha’s hand comes in contact with his head. When he looks over, she’s shaking her head at him while Bucky laughs like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever seen and Steve sends him an apologetic smile. Bruce and Tony are too busy hunched over an AP Physics textbook to see Natasha’s abuse of Clint’s head, but if they’d noticed, Clint’s guessing Bruce would’ve cringed in sympathy and Tony would be laughing even louder than Bucky.

“What was that for?” Clint asks, rubbing the back of his head.

“You haven’t heard a word anyone’s said since you sat down,” Natasha says. “You haven’t even touched your sandwich. Either of your sandwiches. Or your fries. Or your cake. How do you eat so much without getting fat, anyway?”

“Track. Archery.” To placate her, Clint picks up one of his sandwiches—grilled cheese, because it congeals pretty badly if you let it sit too long—and takes a bite. “And I’ve heard everything. I just haven’t listened.”  


Tony snorts and looks up. “Do you not know everything for once, Romanov?” he asks Natasha. “Clint’s got a perfectly valid reason for not caring about anything any of us are talking about. A cardigan-wearing, bespectacled, quietly handsome, approximately 21-year-old reason.”

Clint stuffs a substantial amount of sandwich into his mouth so he doesn’t groan. Or collapse. Or die of embarrassment. Because of course Tony’s right. Tony Stark’s usually right. And unfortunately for Clint, Tony’s in his AP English class, and he saw _everything_. Not that it would’ve been obvious to many others, but again, this is Tony.

Natasha narrows her eyes at Tony.

“What, do I need to spell it out for you even further?” Tony sighs theatrically. “We’ve got a new student teacher in Munroe’s class, and Clint’s already got a mad crush on him.”

“How could you tell?” Clint can’t help asking.

“Oh, don’t worry, you’re not, like, making a scene of it.” Tony waves his hands dismissively. He waves his hands around when he talks a lot. Like, excessively. But it’s charming. Or something. Clint’s not always sure why they keep him around, but it makes sense somehow. “But you don’t usually pay attention in Munroe’s class. You didn’t all last semester, at least. And the second this guy walked in, nothing else could’ve dragged your attention away. Like, if an army of killer robots came storming through the windows, you wouldn’t have noticed because his cardigan had elbow patches and he put _The Handmaid’s Tale_ on our reading list.”

“It makes me a little nervous how readily you thought of the example of killer robots,” Bruce says, speaking for the first time since Clint sat down at the table. “This sounds like a fairly serious infatuation in a relatively short period of time.”

“It’s not,” says Clint, and then, “It _isn’t_ ” when Tony starts giggling, honest-to-God _giggling_. “He’s just really cute and obviously pretty smart and he seems like a guy I’d want to get to know if he wasn’t my _teacher_ , OK?”

“Student teacher,” Natasha corrects him. “So technically, he won’t be a teacher after a few months. And you’re graduating anyway.”

“You’re not supposed to be encouraging this,” says Clint.

She shrugs. “Why not? Peggy Carter’s going to school in California and Steve’s staying in Brooklyn and I’m still telling him to ask her to prom or do some grand gesture bullshit before she’s gone.”

“Hey!” says Steve.

“Stark’s not listening, but I’ve been begging him to ask out Pepper for two and a half years.”

“False, and true,” Tony says. “And I’ve tried. Really.”

“Doubtful,” says Natasha. “Anyway, I think you all deserve to be happy. So why not wait things out and see if you still think he’s the man of your dreams?”

“I would never describe anyone as the man of my dreams, Nat.”

“Semantics. Wait on it.”

.:.

Clint does. Or at least, he tries.

Because the thing is, Mr. Coulson—his first name starts with P, Clint knows, thanks to the monogram on the leather bag he brings to class every day—Mr. Coulson really is everything he looks for in a guy. Or, at least, it seems like it. It’s hard to say when all Clint sees of him is in the classroom, talking about Orwell’s lasting impact on dystopian literature or whether the Hunger Games series would exist without _Battle Royale_. But there are the cardigans, and the dry humor, and the way he listens so intently whenever someone raises their hand to make a point, however terrible. If nothing else, Clint has a massive crush on him, and he’s doing everything he can to not give himself away. It’s easier to do that from the back of the room, so that’s where he decides to sit, grateful that Mr. Coulson hasn’t instituted a seating chart. He still pays Mr. Coulson all kinds of attention, but he does it behind everyone else, and only Tony’s there to laugh at him. Clint’s used to Tony laughing at him. Happens the other way around just as often, really.

“Which book are you reading?” Tony asks him after class one day as they’re gathering their things to go to lunch. “Wait, why am I even asking?”

Clint laughs. “Not _The Handmaid’s Tale_ , I’ve read that twice. Seems unfair. I’m doing _Lord of the Flies_.”

“You’ve read _The Handmaid’s Tale_ twice but not _Lord of the Flies_?”

“It fell off the list at some point,” says Clint. “Are you asking so you can read the same thing and steal my notes?”

“I would never,” Tony says, walking two steps ahead of Clint out the door.

“You’ve read _The Handmaid’s Tale_ twice?” Mr. Coulson asks. His voice is quiet, almost as though he’s not sure he wants Clint to respond. Clint looks at Tony, who winks at Clint over his shoulder and heads further out into the hallway. Fucking Stark.

“Yeah,” says Clint, adjusting his backpack strap on his shoulder, not quite looking at Mr. Coulson. “It’s my favorite book. Well, one of my favorites. It’s—it seems unfair not to have a nonfiction favorite. So I’m working on that.”

“That’s very egalitarian of you,” says Mr. Coulson, smiling. “Atwood would be proud.”

“Well, I do what I can,” Clint says, and damn it, he knows he’s starting to flirt, probably pretty awkwardly, but he can’t help it, not when Mr. Coulson is being this friendly and this adorable and this ... well, this is, like, personal attention. And how’s he supposed to resist that?

“If you want, Clint,” says Mr. Coulson, “we could discuss _Lord of the Flies_ after class sometime. Since you’ve never read it, it might be helpful.”

“Kids pass around a conch, go crazy, groupthink ensues,” Clint says. “That’s about it, right?”

Mr. Coulson laughs. It’s glorious. Clint kind of hates himself right now. “More or less accurate. But the offer still stands.”

“I appreciate it, and I might take you up on it,” says Clint. “But right now, I should go to lunch before Tony tells everyone I’ve been kidnapped or something. Assuming you’re not going to kidnap me.”

Clint’s hoping for a laugh. What he gets is somehow better and worse at the same time—a steady gaze, all blue and steely and painfully hot.

“You can tell Tony not to worry,” Mr. Coulson says after what feels like forever. It’s probably about fifteen seconds, but—yeah, forever. “I’m a student teacher, not a criminal mastermind.”

“Well, I’m reassured,” says Clint. “See you tomorrow, Mr. Coulson.”

Mr. Coulson rolls his eyes. “I really wish Ms. Munroe hadn’t told you all to call me that,” he says. “I’d feel like I was going against her wishes if I let you use my first name now.”

“Which is?”

“Phil. Feel free to think of me as Phil from now on, even if you never say it out loud within the confines of this classroom.”

“Right,” says Clint. “Cool. See you, then, Mr. Coulson-definitely-not-calling-you-Phil.”

Clint gets that laugh he was hoping for. It rings in his ears long after he’s sitting next to Natasha and across from Tony, who won’t stop smirking.

Clint couldn’t care less.

.:.

A few weeks later, Clint does take Mr. Coulson—Phil, he tries to avoid calling him that, even in his head, despite being given permission, because it’s too close and Clint can’t have that, at least, not yet—up on his offer. If he has some explaining to do tomorrow at lunch, then it’s worth it to see what Mr. Coulson eats (couscous and kale chips and half a Kit Kat bar, which, weird) and hear how he talks when he’s not in front of a roomful of students.

Clint knows this could go one of two ways: either he’s even more into Mr. Coulson after sharing lunch and trading observations on _Lord of the Flies_ , or he’s totally turned off by the sound Mr. Coulson’s mouth makes when he chews or something else equally as bad as that. (And OK, that may not be the only reason he broke up with Jimmy, but it was pretty damn high on the list.) Because Clint’s life has never been one hundred percent fair, this is definitely going the first way, especially when they’re not talking about Piggy and the stupid shell anymore.

“I don’t actually read that much classic literature,” Mr. Coulson—OK, fine, Phil, it’s quicker, OK?—says between bites of his couscous. (Again, weird.) “Obviously, I’ve read everything that I assigned you guys. But I’m much more interested in comics. If I go to grad school, that’s probably what I’ll end up focusing my thesis on.”

“Are you planning on going to grad school?” Clint has leftover pizza, which, he’s starting to realize, is very hard to eat in an attractive way.

“Hard to say,” says Phil. “Principal Fury told me there’s a spot waiting for me in the fall if I’m interested.”

“That’s great!”

“Yeah, but you won’t be here anymore.” Phil rushes to add, “Your class. You’re all great.” But he’s not fast enough to stop himself from blushing for a few seconds as he, very deliberately, Clint thinks, shovels too much couscous in his mouth to speak around. And he doesn’t talk when there’s food in his mouth, anyway. He’s polite like that. Fuck, Clint is so far gone.

“We won’t be too far away,” says Clint. “At least, not all of us. I’m going to Columbia.”

“Go, Lions,” Phil says, smiling. “Why Columbia?”

Clint shrugs. “Archery. Academic scholarship. Bragging rights.”

“All extremely valid reasons. How’d you get into archery, anyway?”

“It’s kind of a long story.” Clint scratches the back of his neck. His friends would recognize it as a gesture of nervousness, and apparently Phil does, too, judging from the look of concern on his face. “Short version is I happened to get handed a bow when I was a kid, 12 or so, and it just kind of clicked with me, what I was supposed to do and how I was supposed to do it. Like I’d always known how, I just didn’t have the equipment for it.” He reaches down next to him and pulls out his case. “Still have my first bow, but this is this year’s model. Meet Veronica, the third of her name.” Clint shoves the last of his pizza into his mouth before unclasping the case and spreading out his hands with a flourish. Veronica III deserves it. She’s beautiful.

“I don’t know anything about archery. Like, at all,” says Phil. “But it’s... It’s a gorgeous bow.”

“I can show you how to shoot sometime if you want,” Clint says. “I mean, if that’s not weird. You could use Veronica II. She’s not too hard to maneuver. Tony wanted to learn once and he could shoot with her. Technically.”

“It’s comforting to know that Tony Stark isn’t good at everything,” says Phil. He pauses, and Clint can’t help laughing. “That was probably horribly unprofessional, wasn’t it?”

“Probably. But I liked it.”

There’s a slight blush covering most of Phil’s face. It’s not a bad look on him. “And no, I don’t think it would be weird. Maybe you could show me over lunch sometime?”

“Maybe in a couple days?” Clint offers. “I’ll get so much shit from the lunch crowd if I don’t show up two days in a row. I’m OK to say ‘shit,’ right?”

“Yes, Clint,” says Phil. “You’re OK to say ‘shit.’ And Thursday is fine with me.”

.:.

“Thursday may be fine with him, but it’s not fine for you,” Natasha tells him the next day at lunch.

“What are you, my mother?” Clint asks. “For lack of a better phrase.”

“Butler,” says Tony. “Wait. I’m not the only person at the table who has one of those, am I?”

“Don’t dignify that question with an answer,” Natasha says. “None of you.” She looks around the table. Fortunately for Clint, most of the others’ attentions are otherwise occupied, Steve with his sketchpad, Bucky with his chicken fingers, and Bruce with his ever-present AP Physics textbook. But Tony’s a captive audience. He’s thought it many times, and Clint will think it again: fucking Stark.

“Anyway.” Natasha turns back toward Clint. “You really think it’s a good idea for you to put your hands all over the person you’re trying not to be interested in right now?”

“Oh, I think that idea’s about shot to hell at this point,” says Clint.

“Stay on topic, Barton.”

“It’s really hot when you get frustrated,” Tony says, and Natasha reaches across the table to smack him upside the head without looking. “Worth it.”

“No, Nat, I don’t think it’s a good idea,” says Clint. “But I offered, and he accepted, and I should go through with that, right?”

“It would be rude if he didn’t,” Tony says.

“Not if he explains himself,” says Natasha. “Just tell him you’re attracted to him, and it wouldn’t be wise to put yourself in a compromising situation with him before you graduate.”

“No one does that!”

“It’s what you’d do in Russia,” she says, just like whenever she’s trying to justify something insane.

“You only lived there till you were 11,” says Clint, but he knows he’s fighting a losing game.

“You know it’s what you should do, right?” Clint hates when Nat looks at him like this, like he’s smart enough to make his own decisions but sometimes needs a push in the right direction, the one she’d pick. Hates it.  


Still, he sighs and says, “I’ll cancel. The whole ‘I’m super into you and it’s a bad idea since it’s still March and I don’t graduate till May 22’ thing, though? I don’t know if I’ll say that part.”

“I’ll take what obedience I can get from you,” says Natasha, and Tony cackles as she lays a patronizing hand on Clint’s arm.

.:.

“Do you mind rescheduling that archery lesson?” Clint’s standing in front of Phil, who’s clearing off the whiteboard. Phil turns to look at him.

“No, that’s fine,” says Phil. “I need to write that reading quiz I threatened you guys with anyway. When works for you?”

“May 23, maybe?” Clint says it without thinking, and Phil looks so adorably confused that it’s very, very difficult for Clint not to kiss him then and there. So, instead, he does what he’s best at, aside from running fast and hitting targets: he keeps on talking.

“It’s just—I have this insane crush on you, like, _insane_ , and I probably shouldn’t even be in this class anymore, let alone the lunch thing, which, yeah, that was awesome, and perfect, and I kind of want to do it every day, but I shouldn’t, because OK, I’m 18, you’re 21 or so, that part’s not weird, but the part where you definitely can’t date one of your students and you probably wouldn’t even want to anyway? That’s the part I’m stuck on.” Clint stops to take a breath before continuing. “So I think it’s probably better if I don’t physically correct your archery stance when I’m still your student and you’re still my teacher. Student teacher. And I’m gonna go now, because that was at least a hundred too many words.” Clint hitches his backpack over his shoulder and heads for the door. “I’m really sorry, Phil.”

“Clint.”

Clint looks over his shoulder. Phil’s moving the dry erase marker from hand to hand, looking only a little nervous.

“I understand what you’re saying, and you don’t have to be sorry. I’ll let Ms. Munroe know you’d rather meet with her in the future. And...” Phil doesn’t look at him when he says the next part. “You’re wrong about the ‘probably wouldn’t want to’ thing.”

Clint’s heart does this weird spasmy thing that’s never happened around Jimmy or Bobbi or anyone, and for once he’s speechless, so he just nods and turns away again.

.:.

“Feel better, then?” Natasha asks him a few minutes later.

“Just let me eat my fucking sandwiches, Nat.”

.:.

There’s a lot of that in the weeks that follow, what Tony calls “sadness sandwiches” and Bucky calls “pathetic pining” and Nat doesn’t call anything, just rolls her eyes and reminds him he doesn’t have to wait too much longer. On the one hand, it’s awesome that Phil apparently feels the same way as Clint. On the other, the waiting is straight up murder. Phil’s still perfectly polite to him in class, but it’s different now, more stilted, and even though now he knows that Phil has feelings for him, Clint wishes he’d held back that particular round of word vomit till after he could do something about it.

Instead, he throws himself into archery, goes to prom (stag, since Bruce surprised everyone by asking Natasha), and writes and re-writes his final papers on _Lord of the Flies_ and American jingoism during World War II and the representation of schizophrenia in Shreiber’s _Sybil_. He’s finishing the semester strong, and his foster parents, the McDowells, seem genuinely proud of him, which isn’t new but it’s always welcome. They’re the best placement Clint’s had, and he’s gonna miss the hell out of Mrs. McDowell’s mac and cheese when he moves to Columbia. Anyway, he’s distracted, more or less. But his distraction’s interrupted on May 15, when he finds a sealed envelope in his locker, apparently slid through one of the vents.

He’ll be late for Phil’s class if he opens it now, but Clint can’t help his curiosity as he starts to read.

_Clint—_

_You know I’m done after tomorrow, right?_

_If you meant what you said in April, I’ll meet you in our classroom at 2:45 tomorrow._

_Don’t be late, or do. I’m probably pathetic enough to wait at least an hour for you to show up._

_Phil_

A few minutes later, Tony asks Clint why he’s grinning “like a fucking idiot.” Clint chooses not to answer and draws a picture of Piggy as a pig, unable to hold a conch shell due to cloven hooves and very sad about it, instead.

.:.

Psychology is absolute agony on May 16.

They’d had a bit of a farewell party for Phil in AP. Ms. Munroe, who’d been sitting at the back of the classroom on and off throughout the semester, never offering a word of praise or criticism, brought her signature carrot cake muffins—meaning Phil had definitely gotten an A from her, if that was how student teaching grading worked. Clint brought the special lemonade the McDowells had shipped from the Midwest, and a few of the others decorated the classroom with balloons and streamers and an “IT’S A BOY!” banner. (They claimed it was the only one available at Party City, a blatant lie everyone chose to ignore.) Phil gave a 30-second speech at the end about how glad he was to have met everyone, and it was so ridiculously sweet that Clint had to resist the urge to reach for Phil’s hand and squeeze it. They’d been close enough to do that, the first time since April that was true, and now, watching the clock, Clint has no idea how he’s going to make it through the next four minutes.

Miraculously, he does, and then he’s trying not to sprint downstairs to the classroom where they’re supposed to meet. Phil’s taken off his cardigan, meaning Clint gets to see his bare arms for the first time. And they’re damn fine arms. Phil must lift. Now, that’s an image Clint could get used to. He takes a sharp breath, and Phil turns away from the poster he’s taking down.

“Hey,” he says softly. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

“Are you kidding?” Clint walks over to Phil’s—Ms. Munroe’s now, he supposes—desk and perches on the edge of it. “Psych was murder. I swear I saw more of the clock than Mr. Dupree’s lips moving.”

“I suppose I should be grateful you’re not looking too much at another man’s lips,” says Phil. Clint’s not sure how he’s done it so fast, but he’s standing in front of Clint now, placing his hands on either side of Clint’s thighs.

“Believe me, Phil,” Clint says, emphasizing Phil’s name slightly, “I’ve spent plenty of time looking at yours.”

“Yeah?” Phil leans a little closer.

“Yeah,” Cline breathes out. “Looking at them, thinking about them, imagining how they’d feel against mine.”

“These are some lines, Mr. Barton.”

“All true.”

“I’ll believe it when—”

Clint closes the gap between them, and, _holy shit_ , he’s kissing him. He’s kissing Mr. Coulson. Phil. That’s the name he’s saying under his breath whenever they pull away before diving back in again, Phil kissing like Clint doesn’t even know, mapping out every inch of Clint’s mouth and a little bit downward, tracing his teeth and tongue along Clint’s throat in a way that feels kind of deliciously dangerous in a high school classroom.

“Can I plan on being cut off mid-sentence like that often?” Phil asks when they take a moment to catch their breath.

“Depends,” says Clint. “Did you mind?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“Thought you might say that.” Clint jerks his head toward the door (which, thankfully, he’d closed behind him several minutes before). “Want to go somewhere that’s a little less, uh, here?”

“I have a really crappy studio in Washington Heights,” says Phil.

“Sounds perfect.”

And it really does.


End file.
